


Within Thy Light

by Island_of_Reil



Series: Rova Eimenar: An Anthology [1]
Category: The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Clergymen, Cold, Exhaustion, Forgiveness, Homoerotic Religious Poetry, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Religious Guilt, Rituals, Shame, Wet Dream
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-16
Updated: 2017-04-17
Packaged: 2018-10-19 15:36:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10642839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Island_of_Reil/pseuds/Island_of_Reil
Summary: Later, he would remember only four things, in which his mind swam drunkenly for hours after he had left the Untheileneise’meire: the dizzying lightness of a burden lifted from his soul; the imagined feel of those lean, strong hands upon his body; the heat that lingered on his forehead after firm lips brushed against it in the kiss of absolution; and that the Archprelate had spoken of his honor.





	1. Prologue: Summer

The antechamber to the Archprelatial Office of Cetho, at the far end of the Untheileneise’meire, was starkly and sparsely appointed. Above the heavy inner door hung a triptych of Ulis, Cstheio, and Csaivo, but the unlit gaslights were the only other things upon the limewashed walls, bright in the midday sun that flowed in through the clerestory windows. The furnishings were of unvarnished pine: a bench flanked by two uncushioned straight-backed chairs, and a small table on which the simplest of clockworks ticked away.

In the chair to the left of the bench, Thara shifted from buttock to buttock. Though he was no stranger to austere surroundings, the chair beneath him was hard and ungiving to the point of pain. He longed to rise and pace the room, but he dared not risk having the Archprelate’s secretary — or, worse, the Archprelate himself — catch him at such a mannerless show of impatience.

In sooth, his ill ease in body was his own fault, no less than his ill ease in mind. From the moment the battered corpse of Oseian Dalaran had been borne to him by her angry kin, all food had tasted like ashes on his tongue, and the flesh had since begun to fall from his bones. Had he quit Evru Dalar long ago, Oseian would still be alive. And so would Evru. Lonely, ill-treated, but alive, his hands unstained with blood.

Had Thara conducted himself as a prelate should, he would still wear robes, mask, and plait. He would not have had to throw himself upon the scant generosity of his cousin, the Ethuverid Zhasan. Nor would he be seated here, readying himself to beseech the most powerful cleric of the Elflands for absolution.

The clock ticked away, and away, and away. Again and again, Thara’s eyes were drawn to the open hands in the left panel of the triptych, whiter than those of any elf, their long nails livid blue. Again and again, he dropped his gaze in shame, his ears falling along with it. _Forgive me, Ulis. I have failed thee so profoundly._

His eyes were thus on the stone floor of the antechamber when he heard the soft creak of the inner door. He forced his ears up before it had opened completely.

“Mer Celehar?” The canon who served as the Archprelate’s secretary was tall, narrow-faced, and probably in his late twenties. He set cool grey eyes on Thara and said, “His Grace will see you now.”

“Thank you,” Thara said, rising gratefully and following the secretary past the door.

No clerestories shed the day’s light upon the long corridor beyond; its thick white walls and arched ceiling were sallowed by gaslights set in widely spaced niches. Its many closed doors, as imposing as that through which Thara had been admitted, muffled all sounds behind them. The corridor was tomb-silent save for his and the secretary’s footfalls on the stone and the hiss of the gaslights, and both these seemed to him as swallowed up in the hush as a dove’s feather in a snowstorm. He kept his eyes straight ahead as if, indeed, he moved through a snowstorm. For lack of aught better to focus upon, they were drawn to the secretary’s waist-length queue, identical to that which Thara had shorn from his own head two weeks before.

At last they reached the corridor’s end, where stood an even more massive door. The secretary knocked upon it. “Please come in,” called a voice from within. Though it was hard to tell through the door, it sounded quite young to Thara’s ears.

Briskly, the secretary pushed the great door open, and Thara followed him inside. “Mer Celehar to see you, Your Grace,” the secretary said briefly.

“Many thanks, Canon. That will be all,” said the Archprelate as he rose — and, with him, Thara’s heart rose into his throat.

He’d known, of course, that the old Archprelate had died a year and a half before, of a bronchine brought on by the winds of that savage winter. He’d heard that the new Archprelate, Teru Tethimar, was a reverent, serious man, yet far less ceremonious than the old, and far more welcoming to even his lowest-ranked congregants.

He had not heard that the man was strikingly young for an archprelate — not even forty, by Thara’s guess. Nor that his face was a breathtaking landscape of planes and angles, the line of his jaw forceful, his chin thrust stubbornly out. Nor that his eyes, exactly halfway between green and blue, glinted with intelligence and curiosity. Thara had heard that the men of the Tethimada were comely, but never had it occurred to him to wonder whether it might be true of the new Archprelate.

As the door thudded shut behind him, he sank to his knees upon the stone and bowed his head with a hushed “Your Grace.” He would have done so regardless, but he welcomed the chance to make certain all desire was schooled from his expression before he looked the Archprelate in the eye.

“Please, that is not necessary, not here or now. Rise.”

Swallowing at the kindness, and at the Archprelate’s voice — merciful goddesses, he spoke as a nightingale sang — Thara stood again and forced himself to hold that sea-like gaze. He had never feared much, other than exposure for what he was, and since that fear had come to pass he had found himself with little energy to entertain any others. But the sense of his soul being turned inside out by those searching eyes was unnerving. He wondered if those who stood before Ulis felt the same.

The Archprelate’s private office was much like the antechamber. There were a few more icons on the walls, as well as a corkboard behind the desk to which were pinned various letters, cards, and notes. There was yet another internal door, presumably to a supply closet. The desk itself, heavy and ornate, was likely inherited from the previous Archprelate. But the chairs were again of pine and simply wrought, as was the high bookcase crammed tightly with books and one or two scrolls.

The Archprelate gestured to the chairs before the desk, and Thara took one, stifling another wince. His host seated himself at his desk and, without preamble, fixed Thara with his unsettling gaze again.

“We have read your letter,” he said neutrally.

Thara closed his eyes. The shame he had been holding at bay for the last month, just as he had held himself in abeyance from Ulis, now pressed heavily upon him. He had spent more than a week preparing for this moment, knowing he’d had no right to ask it. A week on his knees in the shabby Cstheiomeire on the outskirts of Cetho, in the shabby clothes afforded him by his ever-so-generous cousin, passing for a common congregant, pleading for vision and courage. There was an Ulimeire, too, in an adjoining neighborhood, but he had not dared so much as set eyes upon it. He wondered when he would be able to look upon black robes and a moon-mask again. When he would be able to gaze at length upon Ulis’s open hands again.

He forced himself to reopen his eyes and focus on the absurdly beautiful face of the Archprelate. Was this fresh chastisement? The gods rekindling in him the desires that had been his undoing, desires that should lie in ashes the rest of his life? Taunting him with the beauty of a man he could no more have than he could have had Anmura or Akhalarna in his bed?

“We will accept any decision you have made, Your Grace,” he said dully.

The Archprelate’s gaze did not waver as he said, “There is no question in our mind, Mer Celehar. While you did not honor the entirety of your vows, neither did you use your gift ill, and thus thwart justice, to protect Evru Dalar. You abdicated your prelacy out of respect for the position, even before it was asked of you, for you understood how gossip would have poisoned your ability to minister to the people of Aveio. Your letter is humble and honest, with neither self-pity nor self-justification. We have granted ritual forgiveness to penitents far less worthy; we see no reason we should not grant it to you.”

Thara closed his eyes again as they stung hot and wet. He cursed himself for the tears and wished, as he had so many times before, he could draw the coldness of the god whose call he answered into his own veins. It would have preserved him from so much grief.

He did, fortunately, have his upbringing to bear him up. He could school his features and his voice, if he could not disguise the wetness in his eyes as he opened them again. The profound compassion in the gaze that met them nearly undid his composure once more, but he swallowed hard and said firmly, “Thank you, Your Grace.”

“We will perform the rite immediately,” the Archprelate said, “having set aside time in our schedule to do so. It will not take overly long.”

 _As an I’ve some pressing engagement afterward._ Though Csoru had installed him in a suite of rooms at Court — a small and drafty suite, to be sure, the equivalent of many city blocks away from the ornate focal point of the Alcethmeret — he had no desire to enmesh himself in Court society. He’d formally repudiated that glittering world at sixteen with the vow of his canoncy. With another stab of irony, he reflected how little it mattered that his cousin would not provide him with a copper more than he required to look respectable, lest it somehow cost her yet another enormous bead for her hair.

The Archprelate rose again. “Follow us,” he said.

They walked back down the corridor, through the antechamber, and into the Untheileneise’meire. The air within was cool, even with Summernight so recently passed and the afternoon sun rippling down through the oculus. Thara shivered under his threadbare shirt and summer jacket as the Archprelate led him across the vast bright marble emptiness, past the farther ring of effigies of long-dead emperors, into the satellite shrine consecrated to Ulis.

The shrine of each god was small and circular, architecturally separate from the Untheileneise’meire proper save for its doorway, and its walls not as thick. The heat of the day thus pressed into the shrine of Ulis, and Thara ceased to shiver as the Archprelate closed the heavy wrought-iron door behind them. He wished he could take it as an unmitigatedly good omen, but even a dullard could have appreciated the irony of finding warmth in a place of Ulis.

The Archprelate turned from the door and held out his hands before him, as Ulis had held out his in the triptych, and asked simply, “Wilt pray with me, Thara Celehar?”

The informal address was integral to such a spiritually intimate ritual as asking a god to bestow forgiveness upon a penitent. Thara himself had spoken those words many times over the years, hands outstretched to the one in need of forgiveness. But, coming from those firm lips over that stubborn chin, they made the blood surge through him, leaving his head light and his loins aching.

It was far from the first time he had had to maintain his dignity in the face of lust and longing, and, he was certain, it would be far from the last. Without stammering, without gulping, he held the Archprelate’s gaze and replied, “I will.”

They both moved, then, to the spot before the altar. The Archprelate sank to his knees a fraction of a moment before Thara did his own. His flash of embarrassment died away in another fierce rush of untoward yearning as strong, lean, square hands encompassed his own small and delicate ones.

“Lord Ulis,” the Archprelate said in his voice like the flow of water in a spring as he bowed his head, Thara bowing his as well. “I beseech thy grace on behalf of thy faithful vassal Thara. He is no cold god but a mortal man, weak and fallible, as are all men and women. But he did not profane his gift of Witnessing with a lie to shield a murderer, nor did he strive to maintain his position when it was compromised by scandal. I have begged thine absolution for those, clerics or not, who have committed far greater trespasses and shown not half the honor of Thara Celehar. Surely thou canst see fit to forgive him, whether or not he ever return to a prelacy, and keep him shrouded in thy holiness.”

Thara was a well-bred man, sprung from the line that had provided the Ethuveraz with its current empress. He had spent nearly half his life in robes, rising as high as prelate. He made all the right responses, at the right moments, with the right intonations; he could have done naught else. But, later, he would remember only four things of the ritual, things in which his mind swam drunkenly for hours after he had left the Untheileneise’meire: the dizzying lightness of a burden lifted from his soul; the imagined feel of those lean, strong hands upon his body; the heat that lingered on his forehead after firm lips brushed against it in the kiss of absolution; and that the Archprelate had spoken of his honor.


	2. Winter

“Mer Celehar?”

Thara blinked away images of fire, daggers, and blood, as well as the utterly self-assured ravings of a Curneisis weaving in and out of the scenes of destruction. “Brother Mesthena?”

The Vigilant Brother beside him was heavily built and towering, as were most men of his order; the airship seat barely seemed to contain him. His rank was more or less that of a captain, but, other than the precepts who commanded them, all who belonged to his order were addressed simply as “Brother.”

“We’re descending into Cetho, a crewman said a few minutes ago. We thought we should awaken you.”

“Thank you, Brother,” Thara said, rubbing the heels of his hands into his eyes. The forty-eight hours after he had asked Oseian Dalaran for the name of her murderer had been the longest such stretch in his life. The forty-eight that had just concluded, however, challenged them for that distinction.

Nearly two days before, at the end of his shift, he had put his refitting tools down for the last time — not without a certain wistfulness — and reported to the Amalo headquarters of the Vigilant Brotherhood. A dozen burly, hard-faced Vigilants then accompanied him to the Stone Tree teahouse. Thara did not see Aina Shulivar or Atho Narchanezhen in their usual room, but he did see Evrenis Bralchenar and quietly point him out.

Though he had kept to the shadows, someone recognized Thara nonetheless and called him out by the false name he went by in Amalo. Shouts of rage went up from half a dozen Curneisei: “Betrayer! Viper! We’ll pay thee back for this!” He affected not to hear as he walked out amid the Vigilants, who dragged a weeping and trembling Bralchenar between them. But his ears lay flat to his head and his hands shook — and he nearly jumped out of his own skin when one of the heavy stone teacups went sailing, missed him by inches, and cracked thunderously in two against the wall to his left.

He was seized by the memory of how his hands had so shaken as they lay upon the clammy, stiffened skin of Oseian’s face. And by the memory of Evru in his prison cell, bleakly saying, “I never expected thee to lie for me,” even as his eyes held naught but reproach.

If Shulivar and Narchanezhen had been at the Stone Tree, they had escaped through a window or the back door. A full night of searching did not turn them up. An hour before dawn, Brother Mesthena offered Thara a cell with cot, ewer, and bowl, that he might obtain what rest he could and wash perfunctorily before the search resumed. When Thara began to demur, the captain narrowed his eyes. “How well do you trust the locks on the door to your room in the Airmen’s Quarter, Mer Celehar? Or the locks on the windows? And an a Curneisis were to enter your room, blade in hand, would you be able to fight him off, or flee — provided that his _zhornei_ did not await you, also armed, in the corridor or the courtyard?”

Thara accepted the offer.

The next day and night were spent hunting their quarry to earth, which turned out to be a verminous cellar a few streets away from the Cloud Horses. As the Vigilants hauled them out into the frigid dawn, Narchanezhen spat vituperation at Thara, and Shulivar calmly regarded him with what very much looked like pity. Thara could not decide which of the two he wished out of his sight more.

It was decided that Thara, Brother Mesthena, and three other Vigilants would board the ten o’clock airship to Cetho, stowing the fettered prisoners in the hold beforehand. Thara, who had slept for perhaps five hours in the Brotherhood cell the day before, had intended to sleep a few more therein until it was time to depart. But then a courier off the six o’clock airship _from_ Cetho had come in with the horrific news. For the next three hours Thara could do no more than sit on the edge of his cot, ears flat, hands trembling anew, and a ball of ice accreting in his belly. He had moved too slowly, struck too late. That His Serenity was alive, and Eshevis Tethimar dead, was no thanks to him.

He did force himself to wash, then change out of his stale workclothes into a Vigilant uniform that hung and billowed on him; he’d had to roll up and cuff the sleeves and trouser legs to a ludicrous degree of thickness. He must have put his airman’s long coat over it, as he wore it still, for the walk to Amalo’s mooring mast.

He remembered that the prisoners had been not only chained but gagged, to prevent them from conspiring further, and that Narchanezhen’s eyes had burned a hole into his skull. He did not remember actually boarding the _Industry of Amalo_ , though he suspected that Brother Mesthena had had to guide his progress up the narrow winding staircase. Nor did he remember aught of the two-hour trip beyond grisly half-dreams from the scant sleep that had apparently stolen upon him in snatches.

He was conscious of leaning on Brother Mesthena’s arm as they descended from the airship onto the walkway between the Untheileneise Court and its mooring mast. Mesthena said something about the prisoners and the Nevennamire, to which Thara nodded blearily. Then he felt broad hands grip his shoulders and heard the captain snap, “Get some rest, man, before fall’st over with exhaustion.”

Thara merely nodded again. That he was touched by the concern did not persuade him to alter his plans one inch. He bowed to Brother Mesthena with a sloppiness that would have shamed him had he been fully alert, and he moved with what haste he could muster through the high glass doors and down the endless corridor.

Noon was, by and large, when courtiers began to stir. Many fewer than he had expected lingered in or strode down the vast hallway around him. Of course; notwithstanding that it would have been quite a lazy day after any Winternight Ball, the mood was now understandably subdued. The few he did pass eyed him at first as they might have eyed bird droppings on their jackets. When he came close enough for recognition, their brows shot to the heavens. He wondered with grim amusement what sorts of tales his appearance might give rise to, and he did not doubt that even with all that had transpired the night before, the Court would make time for the telling of same.

At last he strode through the wicket of the Alcethmeret’s gate. A Untheileneise Guardsman whose uniform’s embroideries marked him as a lieutenant approached Thara, eyes narrowed and ears back. “What’s your business here?” he demanded, then blinked several times in rapid succession. “Mer Celehar?”

Thara looked up at him hazily. “We have just arrived on the noon airship from Amalo, and we urgently need to see His Serenity.”

“We believe he is still asleep. We do not know if you have heard—”

“We have,” Thara said, aiming for severe but landing on grief-choked.

The lieutenant nodded, then motioned to one of his subordinates. “Pavona. Fetch Mer Aisava.” The soldier nodded and departed with alacrity.

Thara leaned against the inner wall of the gate, head tilted back, eyes struggling not to close. It could have been five minutes, or five hours, or five years when he heard a polite “Mer Celehar?” and opened his eyes to see the Imperial Secretary standing before him, fine features perfectly composed.

“Mer Aisava,” Thara said, standing upright and gathering the tatters of his wits about him. “We … we must see His Serenity. We have failed him terribly.”

Mer Aisava’s brows rose. “We do not understand, Mer Celehar.”

“Our … our investigations must have goaded Dach’osmer Tethimar into action, and we did not move quickly enough to prevent him from striking out at Edrehasivar.”

There was no reply at first. Mer Aisava was a difficult man to read, which had undoubtedly factored into his being chosen for his current post. But Thara thought he could perceive a faint sympathy in the pale-grey eyes.

Then Mer Aisava said, “His Serenity will be unable to receive you this afternoon, Mer Celehar. His attention will be devoted to the Lord Chancellor and to the Guardsmen who have been conducting investigations into … last night’s incident.”

Thara was wakeful enough that his heart sank at the words. But it was not unsurprising, and it was sensible enough. “We understand,” he said. His voice in his own ears was froggier than ever, all rheum and fatigue. He nodded, slowly and gravely, and repeated, “We understand.”

The look of sympathy became quite obvious. Thara comprehended at some level that he should feel ashamed to see it. 

“We will inform His Serenity that you have asked to see him, Mer Celehar. We are sure that tomorrow, or the day after at the latest, he will be willing to grant your an audience.”

Thara nodded again, and he said, “Thank you, Mer Aisava.” The secretary bowed and turned to reascend the central stairwell.

There was naught more to be done, not for the moment. Thara supposed it would do no harm to take Brother Mesthena’s advice. Automaton-like, he turned in the direction of the suite of rooms Csoru had granted him the use of.

His rooms being considerably less important to the occupants of the Alcethmeret than was the walkway to the mooring mast, his journey there was even more prolonged. A few more courtiers had awakened in the preceding ten minutes and were out and about to gape at Thara, but as he progressed their numbers grew ever sparser. He found himself completely alone well before turning the final corner into the corridor of his suite.

His nose twitched at the faint but persistent smell of dust and mold. This was, possibly, the shabbiest hallway at the Untheileneise Court that was not completely the domain of servants, and his rooms were no less shabby. But, compared with his lodgings in Amalo, they were luxurious. The budget Csoru had had drawn up for him did not include the conveniences of servants, save one who brought up his meals and ferried his laundry back and forth, for the cousin of a widow empress _did not_ dine in the kitchens or wash his own clothes — at least not any such cousin living at Court. The kitchens, however, provided fare considerably above that of the grease-soaked fry-shops and other dubious eateries lining the blocks of Cethora Street that ran through the Airmen’s Quarter. And the bathing-chamber in Thara’s rooms was not one he had to share with two dozen other men. Nor were servants needed to turn the taps for him, that he could scrub the grime out from under his short-cut nails and soak away the blistering cold of a factory town in the Northern mountains in the shortest days of the year. And he could turn down the sheets himself, castoffs from the households of the Court’s nobility that nonetheless were not falling apart into piles of threads…

He reached the door, fumbled in his pocket for his key, and spent the next three minutes attempting to fit it into the lock before he realized he could not.

Thara blinked. His eyes were so dry, so itchy. Had he inserted the key upside-down? He tried once more. He had not. The key would not fit no matter which way he held or turned it.

And then it occurred to him: _She must have ordered the lock to be changed._

His flash of anger, which he had no energy to maintain, dissolved into muddled guilt. Yes, Csoru was childish, petty, and cheap. But Thara had abandoned his rooms without a word to her, and of course she would not wish to pay for them while he was gone, no matter for how long he was gone. He would simply have to make the long way back to her suite, apologize for his inconsideration, and ask her with as much humility as possible to grant him the use of the rooms or of a similar suite once again.

He had, he estimated, left the inner gate to the Alcethmeret at least twenty minutes before. Perhaps thirty or more; his suite was a long way away, his stride was not a long one, and just now it was not an especially brisk one. It was enough time for more courtiers to have awakened, and as he retraced his steps the corridors grew thicker and thicker with them. News of his return apparently having spread, the staring was less of the dropped-jaw nature and more of the familiar whispers-behind-hands-and-fans nature. He registered it, but he had long since ceased to value the opinions of the popinjays among whom he’d been raised, and today he hadn’t the strength to care. His mind was entirely focused on putting one foot before the other, moving inexorably down hallways in increasingly better repair until he stood before Csoru’s door. And knocked.

The door opened smoothly on its well-oiled hinges. The familiar aromas rushed out at him: ruinously expensive perfume, potpourri only slightly less costly, the oils and cleansers that the servants used daily to keep the widow empress’s chambers free of the slightest speck of dust or dirt.

“Mer Celehar,” said Lahazhet, Csoru’s steward, communicating precisely the correct proportion of respect to disdain in both tone and expression.

“Lahazhet,” Thara said, blinking up at the man. “We are sorry to trouble you. May we come in and speak with you?”

“May we please ask the nature of this request, Mer Celehar?”

Thara’s eyes flicked left and right to the courtiers who had gathered, eagerly awaiting the day’s first entertainment. Then he looked up again at Lahazhet and said quietly, “Perhaps it would be wise to maintain your mistress’s privacy as much as possible?”

The steward, his mien for all the world like that of a housewife lifting a dead fly out of the batter by its wing, backed into Csoru’s suite. Thara stepped over the threshold and closed the door behind himself. Thanking the gods that breeding permitted him to speak with poise even in the fugue of exhaustion, he said, “We have discovered that the key to our suite no longer fits the lock. We understand that Csoru Zhasanai was well within her rights to have terminated our use of the suite, but we were called away abruptly on a mission for His Serenity, and we wish to humbly beg her to restore our access to the rooms.”

Lahazhet’s mouth pursed. “Csoru Zhasanai remains abed at this moment. We do not wish to disturb her.”

Thara suppressed a sigh. He continued to stare up at Lahazhet and said with a flatness that just bordered on outright rudeness, “We shall make ourselves comfortable, then, until she awakens and you can inform her of our presence.”

The steward’s bristle was palpable, and the set of his ears suggested he could barely keep them from flattening to his skull. But, disgraced though he was, Thara was born to a noble house, cousin to the Zhasanai, and in the confidence of the emperor. A servant, even that of a widow empress, would risk much to speak back to him, let alone show him the door without his mistress’s express order.

“We will ask her edocharo to see if she is awake,” Lahazhet said curtly, turning on his heel.

Thara stood, arms folded, in Csoru’s receiving room for the next several minutes. It was nearly impossible not to sway on his feet. Perhaps she would take her time rising and dressing, as speaking with Thara would hardly be urgent for her… perhaps he could close his eyes, catch a few moments of rest while standing, as he had done from time to time as a young canon when the needs of a congregant, or of Witnessing, had arisen late in the evening before…

_“What dost thou here, damn thee?”_

The shout jolted him into full if depleted awakeness. Csoru was striding into the receiving room in a dressing wrap and bed-mules, her hair in a sleep-braid, her flattened ears unadorned. Thara noted somewhat absently that her face must be bare of cosmetics, for her color alternated between an unhealthy wanness and red blotches of rage.

He bowed deeply to her, aware that he was wobbling a bit as he straightened. “Cousin, we are so sorry to disturb you, but we have discovered that the key to our suite—”

“The lock’s been changed,” Csoru snarled. “And with good reason. How durst thou run off without a word to us? After we were charitable enough to take thee in, which nobody else would have?”

“Cousin,” Thara tried again. “We are, again, ever so sorry. We were called away to Amalo by a dream of Ulis—”

“‘A dream of Ulis,’” she mimicked him. “Canst drop the mask of piety with us, Thara. Art not even a prelate any longer, having thoroughly shat in thine own nest!”

“We are still sanctified—”

She threw her long-nailed hands into the air. “We care not about whatever nonsense the Archprelate muttered over thy head. We care that saw’st fit to come to us dressed like — like the unnatural spawn of a factory worker and a Vigilant! It was evidently _not_ enough to bring scandal down upon House Celehada with thy perversions, nor to then shrug off our lavish generosity; nay, hadst to make a spectacle of thyself right before our door! Could not _His Serenity_ have had his edocharei dress you as befits a cousin to an empress?”

 _Widow empress,_ he thought but did not say. “His Serenity could not see us—”

She laughed in his face, a sound that made him think of two pieces of glass being ground together. “Of course he couldn’t! We haven’t much higher a regard for his wits than for thine, but we’re fairly sure that, having nearly been murdered last night, he has no time for whatever ‘dream of Ulis’ wentst gallivanting off on. Nor do we, for that matter. Get out of our suite, Thara, and don’t come back.”

His heart began to pound, his ears to flag. “Csoru… Cousin…” He dropped to his knees, prostrated himself, wondered if she sufficiently missed being accorded that mark of respect that it would cause her to relent. “Please…”

“Lahazhet, get him out of here,” Csoru snapped. “With force, if necessary.”

“Mer Celehar,” Lahazhet said coldly. “Please do not make a further spectacle of yourself. We will give you the opportunity to rise and leave the Zhasanai’s suite on your own accord, but if you do not—”

“We understand,” Thara said tightly, rising again despite every muscle in his body screaming for him to remain prostrate on Csoru’s floor all afternoon, and all night, and maybe all the next day too. “We thank you for your time, Cousin.”

He stepped out into the lavishly appointed hallway once more. There were perhaps three seconds of utter silence before the whispers began to rise again — and the furious slam of Csoru’s door washed them away. For, perhaps, another three seconds.

Well.

As little as he cared for the natterings of courtiers, he had enough wit to realize that remaining in the corridor outside Csoru’s suite would not be to his advantage. Numbly, he began to retrace his steps yet again, for want of a better plan.

Outside of Court, he did not know the city of Cetho at all. He supposed he could find the Nevennamire and beg Brother Masthena to take him to the local chapter of the Vigilant Brotherhood, but he was not sure where the entrance to the prison was located, and he balked at asking even a servant just now. He was reasonably sure he did not have enough money in his pocket for even a cheap inn or roominghouse, and to wander about the relevant neighborhoods in his current state was to invite attempted robbery with a concomitant beating. He could throw himself upon the mercy of the clergy who attended to commoners, he supposed, although he knew that mercy to be quite thin indeed.

Of course, if he revealed his identity to the prelate at the city Ulimeire, the mercy on hand might be even thinner.

He had lost track of where his body was bringing him by the time he realized he was moving without thought across a familiar white expanse of marble. Well… he could not say it was utterly without purpose. He had failed Edrehasivar once. But he had failed Ulis twice.

The interior of the Untheileneise’meire was bitterly cold now, its white marble dull under the circle of glowering sky visible through the oculus. In the gloom, its gaslights cast eerie pools of sepia light that alternated with oddly twisted shadows. The dreamlike state Thara had existed in since last he’d slept took on a nightmarish quality: it were as though he passed through a snow-muffled forest in a wonder-tale, with grotesque creatures lurking behind the tree-trunks of the pillars, waiting to reveal themselves and devour him.

The shrine of Ulis, in winter, was even more frigid than the Untheileneise’meire proper. Thara’s hands shook with both fatigue and cold on the massive handle of the door. He staggered to the spot where he and the Archprelate had knelt, hands together, six months before. And, there, he dropped to his knees.

 _Ulis, forgive me, please forgive me._ The words echoed round and round within his head. _Hast given me so many gifts in life: gentle birth, a strong calling, a benefice, a powerful cousin who took me in, an emperor to serve. And I’ve pissed them all away, first in lust, then in stupidity. I do not deserve thy grace._

“We do not think you are the best judge of that at the moment,” said a dry voice behind him, clear as water flowing through a spring.

Thara blinked, swayed on his knees. Had he spoken aloud? Was the Archprelate there with him, or did Thara dream his presence?

The arm around his waist felt real enough, and, even through heavy robes, shockingly warm in the cold of the shrine. “Can you stand?” the Archprelate asked gently. The question puzzled Thara. Could he?

“Thara,” the Archprelate said, more slowly and forcefully. “Canst stand?”

Thara’s eyes opened widely. “I can,” he said. And he did, though not without support.

“When was the last time hadst any sleep?”

“I …” He tried to remember as he leaned against the Archprelate. It was difficult. The events of the last several days seemed to shift back and forth against one another like paneled screens. “What is today, Your Grace?”

“The twenty-second.”

Ah. Right. Winternight had been last night. “I think I last slept on the night of the twentieth. Yes. The twentieth.”

“Hast anywhere to go, and the means with which to go there?”

Even through the haze of exhaustion, Thara wondered if the entire Court knew by now that Csoru had cast him out. “No, Your Grace,” he said defeatedly.

“Then shalt come with us.” It was an order, not a request. From the most powerful cleric of the Elflands.

They retraced the path they’d taken in summer, crossing the floor of the Untheileneise’meire, passing through the antechamber to the Archprelatial offices, traversing the long corridor, and at last entering the Archprelate’s private office. What Thara had guessed six months before to be the door to a closet was, rather, the entrance to a suite of private rooms. They were capacious but as austerely appointed as the spaces the two of them had left behind, their only décor religious iconography and hissing gaslights. Though they were also chilly, they were nowhere near as cold as the Untheileneise’meire, let alone the shrine of Ulis.

“This is our guest room,” the Archprelate said, opening yet another inner door. The room was small and windowless, giving it a measure of warmth the others lacked. Thara’s glassy eyes made out a low bookcase, a nightstand upon which stood a candlestick and a small bell, and a narrow bed piled high with woolen blankets. “Sleep here as long as thou wilt. We will have our manservant leave a carafe of water and a bite of food by the bed. Ring the bell when awaken’st, and either we will hear it or he will, whereupon we shall speak with thee at greater length.”

“Yes, Your Grace,” Thara said, or maybe thought, as the boundary between speech and thought seemed rather blurry just now. He later remembered moving to the bed, but he did not remember removing his coat or workman’s boots and socks. Nor could he remember aught else that happened for a very long while after that.

***

He bolted upright in the bed, heart pounding, seed cooling upon his belly beneath his borrowed shirt.

Initially, his dreams had been the same fiery, bloody morass that had harrowed him on the _Industry of Amalo_. At some point those scenes had faded away, supplanted by water-colored eyes growing dark, powerful hands that were warm upon his naked flesh, and a piercingly sweet voice against his twitching ear: _“Wilt lie with me, Thara Celehar?”_

The rest of it he did not remember. Nor did he wish to. A savage anger burst within him: for the gods who had made him marnis, who had made him weak against lust and love, who had begun to stir his loins again for their fun.

And then anger for himself: that at the age of three-and-thirty, after a decade of telling his congregants they could not blame the gods for all their flaws and mistakes, he was doing just the same.

He put his head in his hands and forced himself to calm.

When his insides no longer felt abraded with hatred for either self or gods, he took inventory of his faculties. A heaviness and a sense of oddness still hung about his head, but he attributed that to the last few days’ disruptions of sleep, as well as to the events of those days. His mind was clear enough for most purposes.

He sat up in the bed, lit the candle, and reached for the carafe and glass. Hard by it on the nightstand was a yellow apple, as well as an undyed linen napkin that enclosed a chunk of coarse brown bread and a small block of white cheese. A canon’s breakfast, literally and figuratively. Thara’s stomach growled; he had not eaten for almost as long as he had not slept. He quenched his thirst, then made short work of the meal, taking care to wrap the apple core and all crumbs in the napkin afterward.

He had no idea what the clock was, but he sensed it was quite late, too late to beg another audience of His Serenity until the morrow. He would ring the bell in a bit, he thought. He wished a look at the bookcase first, pass perhaps ten or twenty minutes in browsing. Surely, guests were welcome to read books that had been placed in a guest room. And it had been many months since he’d held a book in his hands. His remittance from his cousin had not permitted him such purchases, and, well, Csoru did not precisely maintain a well-stocked library.

The book was on the middle of the three shelves, not quite at the end, but nowhere near the center. An unassuming spot. Yet the neat black lettering on the spine fairly jumped out at him:

_Rova Eimenar: A Modest Collection_

Thara’s heart stopped for a long, long second, then resumed beating, faster than when he had awoken from his lustful dream.

Rova Eimenar. Hierophant of Ashedro in the time of Varenechibel III. “Heart-brother,” or so it was written, to the Barhizheise poet Amu Carcethlened, who had lectured at Ashedro for nearly a decade. A poet himself, praised and reviled alike for his verse. As a hierophant one generation later had scathingly remarked in a critique, _One often cannot tell whether Eimenar was inspired by kneeling before an altar or before a naked youth._

Eimenar’s were works Thara had never, ever read. Until the murder of Oseian Dalaran, he had feared to ever be seen in possession of such a book. After the murder of Oseian Dalaran, he could not imagine ever wanting to read such verse.

Now, slowly, he reached into the bookcase. It was a slim volume, bound in soft white leather. There was a foreword, set in small, dense type, which he ignored completely. The poems themselves were set in a type inspired by the barzhad, if somewhat more ornate; the lines were well spaced, the margins broad. He flipped from page to page, skimming verses, until his eyes settled upon one poem in particular:

> _In need of thee, I seek thee in the night_  
>  _The lush and swollen moon that glow’th so white_  
>  _The breadth that stretcheth ‘cross Cstheio’s sky_  
>  _Within thy light so happily I’d die,_  
>  _O Ulis! Cold as stone, they say of thee,_  
>  _They know not how embracest tenderly_  
>  _The maskèd ones drawn to thy quiet grace,_  
>  _Who help all mortal souls their ends to face._  
>  _Thou shinest in thy name when cried aloud,_  
>  _In obelisks that thrust up to the clouds_  
>  _In hottest flame that doth ascend the pyre_  
>  _And all consumeth in its eager fire._  
>  _Into thy arms so happily I’ll fly,_  
>  _Within thy light so happily I’ll die._

He couldn’t have imagined his face could feel any hotter, or his mouth any drier, until he heard a light knock upon the door and a clear voice softly calling: “Thara? Art awake?”

He jolted, fumbling the book in his hands. Hastily he shoved it back into place, even as he grasped that his embarrassment was pointless and rather silly. “Yes. Please, Your Grace, come in,” he called back.

The door opened to reveal the Archprelate wearing not his robes or other elaborate regalia of his office but, of all things, homespun trousers and shirt, with soft indoor shoes. Despite the chill of his other rooms, the shirt was unbuttoned at the collar. Thara tried hard not to stare at the elegant triangle of bare pale flesh, marked off by the Archprelate’s collarbone.

The Archprelate looked steadily at Thara, his expression and ears giving naught away, as he closed the door and leaned against the wall. Finally he said, “Had I any objections to guests reading Eimenar, I’d not have left the book in the guest room.”

In his startlement, Thara didn’t fully register that the Archprelate had spoken of himself in the informal. “How —” He broke off.

“The rustle of pages, and that in thy haste to pretend wastn’t reading the book, didst put it back onto the shelf upside down.”

Thara glanced at the shelf. “Ah. So I did.” His face grew warmer still.

“Didst not sleep sufficiently?”

Thara shook his head. “I have not that as an excuse.” Then the absurdity of the situation struck him, and he chuckled. The Archprelate responded with a smile easily as bright and dazzling as any moon that Eimenar had ever looked upon.

“What’s the clock, Your Grace?”

“Teru,” the Archprelate said, a faint astringency to his tone. Thara gave him another startled look, but the expression he got in return was one that brooked no refusals.

“Teru,” Thara repeated dutifully.

Teru’s expression relaxed. “It is half past eleven o’clock, on the evening of the twenty-second. For reference, I fortuitously spotted thee entering the shrine of Ulis not long after one o’clock.”

Thara blew out a harsh breath. “Too late for an audience with His Serenity.”

“The conspirators against him are all dead or in custody. I am certain whatever hast to report from Amalo can wait until morning, when he can see thee.”

Thara’s brows went up again — but then, he reflected, it had been nearly twelve hours since the _Industry of Amalo_ had arrived from its namesake city, roughly eleven hours since he’d been seen on his way to the Alcethmeret in Vigilant Brothers’ clothing and an airman’s coat, and more than ten hours since Csoru had decisively slammed the door behind him for all to hear. Rumor traveled fast in the Untheileneise Court. Between that and whatever the Archprelatial staff might have heard through official channels, it was unsurprising that Teru had learned of Thara’s mission.

He sighed again and said, “I have failed His Serenity.”

It was Teru’s turn to raise a brow. “How so?”

Thara lowered his head to press his fingertips to his forehead. “I fear the investigations I made on his behalf may have alarmed Dach’osmer Tethimar and his allies into abrupt action. I should have uncovered the plot sooner. I should have alerted the Vigilant Brotherhood sooner.”

There was no response immediately, nor after a moment. Thara looked up to see the firm lips quirk, and for a moment he forgot to breathe.

“What I am about to say is not to leave this room, Thara, for the benefit of us both. But, were it the practice of an emperor to apologize to his subjects, I believe His Serenity would be begging _thee_ for thy forgiveness.”

Thara stared at him. “Why?”

“I’ve heard he blames himself for Csoru Zhasanai having rescinded her support of thee.”

Thara’s mouth fell open. He heard his childhood nurse’s voice in his head, asking him sharply if he were intent on catching flies, and he shut it again. Then he said, “How on earth is that His Serenity’s fault? My cousin the widow empress is a woman grown” — he refrained from adding _though she does not act it_ — “and he did not force her hand. And, in sooth, I cannot boast that in my recent dealings with her I have been the picture of honesty or consideration.”

“No, indeed, he did not compel the widow empress to cast thee out. No more than thou didst put the dagger into the hand of my own cousin.”

Thara’s chin came up. “Understood,” he said. And, he realized, he had not once considered that the powerful, beautiful, kind man standing before him was now kin to a traitor. He added softly, “For what it is worth, I am sorry.”

Teru shook his head. There was a crease in his forehead, and a hard set to his mouth, that had not been there a moment ago. “Do not be. I was never close to Eshevis or his father, and my interests and those of House Tethimada diverged a very long time ago. I am fortunate that Edrehasivar does not judge a man’s guilt by his bloodline.”

There was a story there, but even had Thara the right to ask for it, he sensed he would not have enjoyed the hearing of it. Into the sudden silence that lasted a few beats beyond the point of comfort, he said, “I’ve never read Eimenar before. I … well. I’d always attempted to be discreet.”

That last sentence was a comment, he thought as soon as he’d uttered it, deserving of a contemptuous laugh. Instead, Teru’s expression softened again. It was subtle, very subtle, but the sea-colored eyes looked … not merely sympathetic. Empathetic. A stab of pain in them, ever so faint. Thara had seen it before. Mainly in Evru’s eyes, before … everything had happened. Once, he’d thought, in the eyes of a fellow curate, so long ago.

“Eimenar was a man of profound understanding,” Teru said. “He was blessèd in some ways, cursèd in others, well beyond the degree to which most men are. I do not think he ever recovered fully from the death of Carcethlened.”

“How did Carcethlened die?” Thara had read the Barizheise poet’s adventure-tales as a boy, on his own, but had not studied the events of his life. It was not a subject considered meet for gently bred Ethuverazheise youth — or for clerics in training.

“He was afflicted with a growth in his lungs, and it killed him within a year of its discovery. Eimenar watched him waste away. He wrote a good number of profoundly moving poems shortly before and then after Carcethlened’s death, but he never again wrote any of the sorts of verses he became infamous for.”

Thara fell silent. It had been no easy thing to stand hooded in the crowd at Aveio, amid shameless stares and whispers behind hands, and watch Evru’s head be struck from his shoulders. He tried to imagine, instead, sitting at his lover’s bedside week after week, month after month, watching the solidity of his form diminish, his skin take on a grey cast seen in neither healthy goblin nor healthy elf, listening to each breath, more labored than the last, until the day he could not take another. It was, he knew, the price of steadfast lifelong love, the sort he had seen among some if not enough of his congregants. Should he be grateful, then, of the unlikelihood he would ever face such a sorrow?

When Teru next spoke, Thara realized he was watching his guest intently — and somewhat warily.

“An I were to speak in sooth, it was not entirely those later poems that earned Eimenar a place on my shelf, and in my heart. But that is much truer of them than of his other work.”

Thara had spent the first half of his life in the circles of the nobility, where much nonsense was spoken and much of importance was left unsaid but clearly heard. He had spent the second half of his life in the circles of the clergy, where relatively little was spoken and far, far more was left unsaid and clearly heard.

Now he said, rather than asked, “Hadst thine own Carcethlened.”

The sadness in Teru’s eyes pierced him deeply. “He was a scholar of comparative religions, and formerly a prelate himself; he relinquished his benefice because his calling to the academy was stronger. The revethahal rang for him two winters ago in Ashedro.”

Thara’s throat tightened. “Teru, I am so very sorry.”

Neither Teru’s faint smile, nor the minute shake of his head, seemed intended for Thara.

“I had come to understand that the laws of men and the laws of the gods are not the one and the same. There are more clerics who have reached this understanding than might’st think, Thara, though of course they cannot assert it freely. But when Micedra died, I could not at first quell the thought that Ulis was castigating me for my desires.” He chuckled, dry as the scuttle of a dead leaf across hard ground. “Which of course was self-absorbed and foolish. But grief can be a most villainous, and persuasive, liar.

“Scarcely two weeks later, Archprelate Simezhar succumbed to his bronchine. The Council of Prelates appointed me to take his place, which I had known to be a possibility. I had little time to mourn, and I considered that a boon … at the time. ”

Teru exhaled slowly. “Of course, I have hardly led a bleak existence since. I have been fortunate to enjoy many friendships within the prelacy over the years, and my tenure as Archprelate has permitted me to form new ones and strengthen the old. I have been able to build strong political alliances, even in the challenging climate that … has been changing in recent months. And, of course, had I no one else, I would still have the gods.”

He did not continue. Thara had not expected him to. Some words were like the flow of water in a spring that men could hear, and some were like a spring that ran far beneath the surface of the earth. In turn, neither did Thara give voice to the aching in his breast, for Teru Tethimar or for himself, for what each of them had lost.

Teru focused on him again, eyes sharpened, considering. “Hast done His Serenity, and the Ethuveraz, an immense service. I cannot think of another of noble birth who would have lived so humbly and labored so meanly to carry out that service, nor any cleric other than a Knight of Anmura or a Vigilant Brother who would have taken tea with mass murderers.”

Thara’s mouth twisted. “I had already given up both inheritance and benefice, and my reputation was gone as well. It was not as though I had aught else to lose.”

“Thy life?” Teru asked quietly.

Thara did not reply at first, merely smiled the same inward smile as Teru had a moment before, and looked down at the floor beneath his bare feet. It was of unvarnished pine boards, though faded marks at the baseboards of the walls hinted that it had once been carpeted.

“I suppose,” he said, “there’s that. Though, to be blunt, at the time I did not esteem it much.”

“Implying, then, thou esteem’st it considerably more now. What want’st from it, Thara, in the remaining time Ulis has allotted thee?”

 _Thou,_ he thought, but did not say. He thought he saw a plea to hear the word in Teru’s eyes, but it was gone as soon as it was perceived, a minnow darting away through deep waters. “I … have not truly considered.” He thought for a moment. “If naught else, I would like to Witness again. For the dead, or vel ama.”

“Wouldst like to return to the prelacy?” Teru asked.

Thara contemplated again. “I should feel an ingrate, were I to refuse a new benefice. But, for all that I’ve served congregants to the best of mine abilities, I do not think it is truly where my strength lies. Or my heart, for that matter.”

“Ulis and Cstheio have granted thee clear insight,” Teru said. “Conversely, there are many prelates who have no gift for hearing the voices of the dead or the inanimate. It is better that they focus on the voices of the living.” He paused, then said, “There is a post for a Witness vel ama, for the River Athamara, that has recently opened at Ashedro.”

“I suppose,” Thara said drily, “that if I could work for weeks in a hangar in Amalo, I can live out my days kneeling on a riverbank with my hands in the current.” He thought, though he did not add, that it sounded a great deal more appealing than living at the Untheileneise Court.

Teru flashed him another smile that made him glad he was seated, not standing. “As I understand it, that is unlikely to be necessary. It does require walking about, speaking at times to fishermen and dredgers, and an observant eye. But, above all, it requires the ability to listen to the flow of water.”

A warmth rose up the nape of Thara’s neck and spread out to encompass him like a cape. He said, with more than his accustomed huskiness, “I can only believe it would be a life well spent.”

The moment hung between them, soft and hot, full of potential. Teru was the one who broke it decisively. “I shall accompany thee to thine audience on the morrow with His Serenity, which we will conclude with a discussion of thy future. Until art placed in Ashedro, or elsewhere an there be a pressing need, shalt remain here as my houseguest.” When Thara opened his mouth to protest, Teru held up one broad hand. “I will hear no argument against it, Thara.”

“Hast been far too generous to me,” Thara said, humbled.

“Hast proven to be not precisely the best judge of thine own deserts,” came the dry rejoinder, eliciting a smile from Thara. “In any event, if I did not take thee in, His Serenity undoubtedly would. Here, I think, wilt find far more shelter from prurient eyes and tongues, and far more peace for contemplation.

“And, speaking of such, I intend to pray this evening. I prefer to rise early and pray then, before the start of my day, but the need to preside over the Winternight festivities has altered my schedule for the week. Hast ever seen the Mich’othasmeire, Thara?”

“I do not think so,” Thara said. “I was not aware it was ever used; is it not rather small for its purpose?”

“It has not been used in recent years, no. But when His Serenity’s mother was zhasan, she prayed there often, for she wished to light candles to the gods in the Barizheise fashion without drawing attention to herself. It is a peaceful place, beautiful in its simplicity, and exceptionally so by candlelight. I would fain show thee that beauty.”

“And I would fain see it. But —” He grimaced faintly as he stood up and felt his shirt sticking to his midriff. “— might I use thy lavatory first? I would wash my … face and hands, and rinse my mouth, before we pray.”

Once he had cleansed himself, Thara put on his socks, laced up his boots, and shrugged back into his coat. Expecting to encounter no one else in the othasmeire at this time of night, Teru did not change into robes or formal slippers but merely donned a plain cloak, into the pocket of which he secreted a packet of matches. Another journey through office, corridor, and antechamber, across the frigid expanse of marble, joy and sound rest keeping monstrous things at bay.

In the Chapel of All Gods, a solitary beeswax taper stood in each tall, narrow window. Teru struck a match and touched it to each wick. The flames quivered in the drafts, their glow far warmer than those of the gaslights. In the bowl-base of the final candlestick, Teru laid the spent match, then turned to face Thara. Softness in those sea-colored eyes, the guileless spread of those powerful hands.

“Wilt pray with me, Thara Celelar?”

Thara opened his own hands and held them out in answer. Small, delicate hands that could summon the souls of the dead, that could repair an airship, that could make a man cry out in ecstasy, that could bring down justice upon the wicked and the powerful.

“I will, Teru Tethimar.”

That brilliant smile again, swelling Thara’s heart nearly beyond what was bearable, far fuller than it had been since well before the summer.

They sank to their knees upon the gold mosaic triskelion. The Mich’othasmeire filled with their voices in supplication, the clarity of spring water flowing over the roughness of gravel. Before they rose again, firm lips were touched to Thara’s forehead, a broad thumb brushed over the arch of his cheekbone, and a voice that was no less piercingly sweet for that it was but a whisper recited against his ear: _“Within thy light so happily I’d die.”_

**Author's Note:**

> I just want Thara to be happy, and for that happiness to eventually include dick. Is that so much to ask?
> 
> I was re-reading the parts of the novel that focus on Thara when I realized that his interactions with Teru Tethimar, of which we see only a little, could be read as shippy. Of course, _TGE_ is full of subtle, delicate implications that can be read a number of different ways, which is why I’ve fallen in love with it.
> 
> The formal term of address for Teru in canon, going by a line of dialogue from Maia, is simply “Archprelate.” It sounded odd to me, so I ignored canon and went with “Your Grace” (which _is_ used to address archdukes, as we see in the first coup attempt).
> 
> The figure of Rova Eimenar was inspired by, though not directly based on, Gerard Manley Hopkins. I do not claim that the attempt above at homoerotic religious verse is in any way, shape, or form in the same class as the poetry of GMN.
> 
> Thanks, [airotkiv](https://archiveofourown.org/users/airotkiv/pseuds/airotkiv), for looking this over.


End file.
